4 April 2016

London bridge is falling down

There were places to go,Things to do,People to love,Dreams to thrive.Chunks of corrupted concrete destroyed it all.

31st of March, 2016 is the
Black Thursday in the city calendar of Kolkata. The noon brought along with it
a darkness of the biggest nightmare that the city has had in a while. The
Vivekananda Flyover collapsed killing and injuring several commuters. What went
wrong? Well, corruption first, to start with it all. Negligence. Inaction on
the part of the authority. It recently came to light that one of the on-spot
engineers had informed the KMDA office that the newly welded concrete slab was
bending uncharacteristically downwards five minutes prior to the accident, rather
the disaster. But the authority did not consider it to be a matter of major
concern.

Credits - NDTV

So, wait. What?

They just assumed that a
bridge-in-construction bending down was some early April-fool prank? What else?
There was a flyover in construction, everybody! Not a wall to your garden. And
the traffic was still on full flow beneath it. I remember being a child; my
friends and I were not allowed within a 5 meter radius of even a
garden-wall-in-construction in my neighborhood because the bricks could fall
off and hurt us. But there was no precaution of that sort anywhere. Rather
there were no precautions at all. We’ve seen examples of political ties in this
matter and how the cards of corruption have played off. But I won’t go into
that because corruption is far too deep-seated to just touch upon the topic.

There were major technical errors too.
The workers themselves have come forward to say that inferior materials were
put to use without a second thought. Local people had actually seen the nuts
and bolts falling off off the planks few minutes before the collapse. MP Sudip
Bandyopadhyay has accepted that he had warned the government that the plan for
the project was faulty. Given that the flyover perched on the balconies of
residences in a heavily populated area of North Kolkata, that is not much of a
shocker.

The highly congested nature of the flyover.

But here is the expected flavor of
speechlessness: the project was almost 60% complete and redoing the entire project after drawing another rectified plan would mean a severe drain of money
in the state government’s bank account. Yes. Sure. A few hundred crore is way
more important. What is the cost of the lives of the citizens? 2 lakhs for the
injured, 3 lakhs for the severely injured, and 5 lakhs for the deceased.

Trapped. Credis - DailyMail

This was a project that went through the
change in power of the Bengal legislature. So we have the inevitable blame-game.
Honourable CM of West Bengal said it is the fault of the Left front, since
construction of this particular flyover started back in their time. Just like
Mr. J. McGlashan is to be blamed if something happened to the Howrah Bridge? Or
the blame should go to Shah Jahan for the recently misplaced pinnacle of one of
the minarets of Taj Mahal during its repair works.

There is the counter too, that it was
this government that hurried the completion of the project for the upcoming
elections resulting in the mishap. But the best is yet to arrive. K
Panduranga Rao, Group Head of IVRCL, the Hyderabad based, more than once
black-listed company, that was in charge of the bridge’s construction, said
after the collapse, “It’s nothing but a God’s act.”

IVRCL claimed the collapse to be an "act of God". Credits - India.com

I’m
sure even God must have been frowning down at us, wondering; “Seriously now?
You’re going to throw all the dirt heaven-wards?”

A statement is going viral now. An anonymous
private firm employee said to one of the popular newspapers that Kolkata is
London now and that is why the bridges are falling down. It is funny, yes. But,
on a serious note, we do not want London, we want to live.

Officially the death toll has reached 26 (speculative). But there
are many more lives that have been lost. There are children parent-less now, parents who are childless, newly-wed spouse-less. No amount of money will make up for
their loss. No number of votes would
bring anyone peace from the guilt of this responsibility. Development is
important and infrastructure is an integral part of it. But one cannot expect
to take forward a civilization by giving secondary importance to its citizens. All
that is requested is that the safety of the civilians be given more regards.Maybe
it won’t be too bad to actually be “Sorry for the Inconvenience”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

SUCHARITA GANGULY IS A VERY NEW ADDITION TO OUR EXPRESS FAMILY. THIS MASS COMMUNICATION STUDENT FROM ST. XAVIERS INSTITUTE, KOLKATA, IS AN AVID READER AND WRITER. APART FROM WRITING SHE IS ALSO A DOG LOVER AND FAN OF SHERLOCK.